Customer Journey and Journey Mapping: Unlocking the Code to Brand Experience

Think of a customer journey as the entire path someone takes with your brand — from first hearing about you to becoming a repeat buyer. Journey mapping turns that messy, invisible path into a clear, visual guide. Brands that nail both see huge wins with customer loyalty — and Li-Ning’s 2023 online revamp is a perfect example. That’s where SurveyMars stepped in to power their research.​

Customer Experience: The Heart of Journey Fixes​

Customer experience is what makes or breaks every stop on the customer journey — directly impacting whether people come back. Li-Ning was getting tons of complaints like, “Returning online orders is such a hassle.” So they used SurveyMars to send targeted surveys, and the data told the real story: only 38% of customers were happy with how long after-sales reviews took. That was way worse than gripes about slow shipping, so they knew exactly what to tackle first.​

User Journey Map: Seeing the Journey Clearly​

A user journey map lays out every step a customer takes, plus what they need at each one. SurveyMars helped Li-Ning map this out, and they ended up with 8 key touchpoints — things like “watching a live stream,” “checking product details,” “asking about sizes,” all the way to “dealing with returns.” The biggest problem? 22% of shoppers bailed because no one answered their size questions within 30 minutes. That was the obvious roadblock.​

Experience Map and Digging Deeper​

An experience map tracks how customers feel at each step, and pairing it with a UX map uncovers needs they don’t even say out loud. SurveyMars’ heat map tool showed Li-Ning something crucial: 72% of customers hit a frustration peak when they had to take and upload 3 different photos just to return an item. The user flow here was totally bloated with repeated checks.​

Use SurveyMars to create an exclusive journey map for your brand

With journey mapping as their guide, Li-Ning simplified those after-sales reviews, added an AI size helper to answer questions fast, and cleaned up the clunky user flow. Three months later? Customer satisfaction jumped to 85%, and repeat buys went up 19%. SurveyMars’ ability to tie research to real customer moments is why it works — helping brands decode their customer journey and build way better experiences.​